As punishment for some major sin in a past life, my older brother had to babysit me when my mom was sick and my dad was overseas (USAF fighter pilot), so he took me to rock concerts since he had free backstage passes from an underground hippy-rock radio station he worked for. I quickly developed deep skepticism about the sanity of most of the people in the late 60s counterculture, the "left", "liberals", etc.
I did however read every Whole Earth Catalog (which had a strong "libertarian-left" flavor) that had ever existed.
I was in the Bahai community for about 30 years, starting as a teenager in the early 1970s. They had/have a very specific, grand plan for "world peace" and a bunch of other superficially "liberal/progressive" stuff that they claim will be possible via spiritual transformation (requiring a Islamic type oath of belief to gain official membership in the Bahai organization and then spiritual salvation).
The religion emerged in Iran in the early to mid 1800s and claims to fulfill the prophecies of the return of Jesus, and it claims that we are in the "end times" (Apocalypse) described in the Bible, Qur'an, etc. Bahaism came to the USA and Western Europe from Iran around 1900s during a peak of interest in "eastern mysticism", including a lot of guru fetishism by wealthy socialities. It then began to evolve into more of a religious bureaucracy. I was told by some older "subversive" Bahais in the 1970s that the organization had been infiltrated by the FBI and/or CIA during the J. Edgar Hoover era, and had become de-radicalized. I was around the periphery of a dissident group of activists and academics starting in the late 1980s that had similar ideas about how the religion's "administrators" had gained power and marginalized "radicals".
If you want a mindlessly enthusiastic religion that seems "liberal" on the surface, with some Sufi-like spiritual texts and themes, but that is actually just a fundamentalist Islamic system of patriarchy, check it out. lol
I transitioned from Bahaism to studying Ken Wilber's integral theory, which was an improvement in many ways (Wilber tries to account for evolution, but kind of screws things up), but Wilber's movement turned out to be more of a neoliberal paradigm about making money from Trust Fund Kidz via alt new age type seminars-workshops-books than I think makes sense.
Back in the 80s and 90s, Wilber was very aspirational, but as is usually the case, a lot of problems with organizational culture developed with Wilber's movement and business spin-offs in the early 2000s.
Wilber's problems are similar to those of Adi Da, who Wilber was a cult-follower of when young.
There seems to be a pattern of spiritual groups and movements being cultish and their "guru" types recycling failed, manipulative group dynamics over and over (Blavatsky).
What I do now (retired), besides studying evolutionary psychology and related fields as a hobby, is to try to find individuals involved in the search for new paradigms and evolutionary possibilities and support them (when I'm not on van camping trips or caring for my increasingly 93 year old mother).
I see the entire left-vs-right narrative itself as an evolutionary dead end, incapable of satisfying emergent coherence needs (spiritual, economic, social, moral, political) at the level required to prevent the big disasters that exist now from getting worse.
If I had to identify one thing that is probably essential, it is development of anti-fragility to disruption. That is where the evolutionary leap to a new version of western civilization is probably going to really show up, beyond all the fragmented, scattered but necessary discussions about human nature and what is going bad.
Jim Rutt and his Game-B group seem like they did the best prototype of how to build an anti-fragile social-change group. Their hardened attack surface of sophisticated content moderators repulsed a couple of major attacks by "woke left" kooks, and one major attack by the alt-right Doolittle "Propertarian" kooks. But is hasn't gone much of anywhere in the last couple of years, even though they had hoped (before COVID) to have developed an ambitious independent tech stack to replace just about everything above the level of the internet backbone: servers, a social media platform, a cell phone, maybe e-money, and so forth.
Breaking through the "infoglut", constant change, crisis, and complexity is a real problem.
Side note: population genetics are one of the biggest limits on how "liberal" or "post-liberal" a given society can be. See Joseph Henrich's (Harvard) WEIRD model and genetic determination of personality traits. And Kurt Fischer's Dynamic Skills theory.
This is one (post left-vs-right) way of potentially making sense of the mess that people might find useful:
One of Chapman's core goals is to resolve the *pattern-nebulosity conundrum* in human consciousness, philosophy, etc. (similar to Iain McGilchrist's work)
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. S
Wow, what a fascinating background;you should write a book!
I have never heard of Jim Rutt but will look up him and your other suggestions later.
I have always been skeptical of “evolutionary leaps” when it comes to human consciousness- having spent a good deal of time in the yoga world, I came into contact with some of the Ken Wilbur material and a lot of the culty stuff you describe. It’s a fascinating if problematic terrain for sure. What for lack of a better term I’ll call “spirituality” remains a big interest of mine, one that I hope to explore more with Re/Generate.
Once that line of thinking and experience gets overly mixed into the much more pragmatic and mundane realities of politics, it can be really messy. But OTOH, without an aspirational vision, there can be no movement for political change.
Thanks so much for these very intriguing comments and sharing a bit of your formative background!
Someone suggested Putnam's book as a good resource. Seems to me that Putnam's thesis is, "We have been here before. We'll get throught it, again." For what it's worth, I think he may be wrong.
It seems to me that as a society, we have lost our unifying creation story, and we're in the process of creating a new one. Actually, many new ones. Woke have found theirs. Native American nationalists have their's, and so on. But Liberalism has been knocked off its chair, and its former adherents are wondering where their creation story went. It's very difficult to live without an underlying creation story and it seems we are now in a disquieting place without purpose. Recognizing the old creation story is not coming back, leaves us with your question, "now what?"
I look forward to reading your journey, musing and insights in Re/Generate.
That's a great way to put it. I myself have found that I can no longer believe in the liberal "creation story" in the way that I used to. For sure, I still feel strongly commited to certain liberal principles (free speech, due process, etc. - which of course puts me in direct opposition to the PLPers). But as far as the mythology that surrounded liberalism in America goes, it does feel like the faith has been shattered and that the pieces simply can't be put back together in a strong, compelling way. Some new mosaic must be created if it's going to appear inspiring again.
I also feel like the new creation stories tend to focus on "who to blame for how bad things are," rather that "what is the positive project that we're all in here together." Of course, the old liberal "we're all in this together" universalism has been rejected from both right and left as a hypocritical smoke screen - and it's easy to see why. It's not like there's no there there.
But "who to blame for how shitty things are" narrative is not inspiring unless you're fired up with anger and resentment. Fueling a positive, inspiring political movement requires a positive vision, which none of these players seem to have - at least beyond a hand-waving "burn it all down and then the good society will arise up out of the ashes" attitude, which I find not only unconvincing, but dangerous.
I feel like I've been going through a similar sequence of thoughts and emotions (partly related the classic stages of mourning), which you crystalized very well for me. I'm sure we're not the only ones so I look forward to progress on both projects. The ways forward are far from clear, but the effort to find them must be undertaken. Thanks!
Thanks for reading and commenting! I'm glad to hear that my process resonated. It feels good to have a new direction and strategy for coping with my chronic political malaise :) I feel energized and having your support truly helps!
I'm disappointed that you decided not to write the book. Your political journey since 2016 is very similar to mine, and you do such a good job of describing it. I feel like I understand my own experience so much better now that I've read through your posts.
In terms of going forward instead of looking backwards, you may be interested in a couple of academic books that I've read recently, trying to re-think liberalism. 1) Eric Macgilvray "Liberal Freedom: Pluralism, Polarization, and Politics" 2) Rosenblatt "The Lost History of Liberalism" --
Macgilvray argues that post New Deal liberalism became overly individualistic (as seen in Rawls attempt to show that liberalism is the social order that a group of rational self-interested individuals would naturally choose) Per Macgilvray, earlier liberal thinkers sought to balance the individual freedom with more collective goals. Very abstract and academic, but it suggests that we can think about how liberalism got lost w/o having to abandon it.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate that. I’m gratified to hear that my reflections resonated.
I may go back to the book once I’ve found the narrative arc I’m looking for . . . If I do. Your suggestions are great as I would like to dig deeper into thinking about liberal individualism.
The aspirational vision of human flourishing it contained (as opposed to the self-interested rational economic actor model, which it also contains and has been far more culturally dominant, unfortunately) has also been very central to my own identity and outlook. But of late I’ve been questioning whether a new framework is needed - can that vision of liberal individualism work in a society that increasingly lacks the sort of relationship structures that provide a meaningful framework for the development of a healthy individual? “No man is an island,” but increasingly, so many people seem like they are - and they can’t get off of that island of isolation because they lack the skills that come from experience.
I’m rambling but hopefully you get the idea! Thanks again for the great feedback.
I get what you mean. It reminded me of another book that has a more positive vision for the future. Putnam's "The Upswing: How America came together a Century ago and how we can do it again." Putnam thinks that we are in a new Gilded Age and that we can come out of it like we did during the first "Progressive" Era. B/c I was born in 1965, I find it amusing that he considers 1965 the year of peak social capital in the US -- we've been going downhill ever since I was born. A lot of good data in the book, but I don't think that our current PL progressive movement has the unifying vision to lead the upswing that he hopes for.
In my view, a foundational part of PLP is that it rejects the sort of unifiying national vision that PL championed out of hand. While ostensibly seeking to unite the oppressed across intersectional differences, both in theory and practice that never comes close to translating into something unifying, let alone a project of national renewal. So I think that as long as that's the dominant paradigm that controls the country's political culture, Putnam's optimism will defintely not pan out.
It's possible that PLP could be displaced by something on the right, kind of like what the Reagan Revolution ostensibly did in the 1980s in knocking out the malaise-riddled progressivism of the '70s . . . certainly today's right-wing populist types would like to see that happen. (Here, I hasten to note that I was never a Reagan supporter; I'm just pointing to the whole "Morning in America" episode as a possible historical parallel in displacing PLP.)
Since the more authentic right-wing populists don't have control of GOP, however, I don't see that happening on anything but a transparently fake level (if that). And that would only further inflame the culture war, thereby reinforcing the power of PLP among the Blue State faithful. (DeSantis seems to be moving the Republicans in this direction and could possibly win the 2024 election.)
Therefore, in many view, f some sort of national renewal ever comes, it will only be from a new paradigm that cuts across the current Red/Blue divide strongly and successfully, producing a political realignment that's focused on concrete issues that really matter to the vast majority of people, rather than the activist-driven niches that dominate so much now.
Will this happen? It's possible and I hope so! But it's also probably unlikely. Nonethless, that's what interests me as at least a remote possibliity. A girl can dream, right? :) :) :)
It is a good dream. We're stuck in a vicious cycle, but my hope is that only a small percentage of those in the PLP and PL right (PLT - PL Traditionalists?) are ideologically committed to PL. There always have been a few true believers on both sides (I was surrounded by PLP in grad school in the 90s). They have the initiative now not b/c people are excited by their ideology but b/c neoliberalism seems worn out and unconvincing. But I think that liberalism in the broadest sense still seems natural to most Americans, which is why few PLP will endorse authoritarianism outright w/o hiding behind fig leaves (or pointing to the PLs on the other side as the "real" danger to democratic liberalism).
Yes, I have more pessimistic been thinking of PL as the unwitting Trojan Horse for PLP, but you are completely right, it’s only needed as such because if the underlying claims are spelled out, very few actually endorse the PLP vision. Liberal values are still rooted in the culture much more deeply. They need a serious revitalization, though, to grow past the deadweight of a failed neoliberal era.
Quick note that I may have introduced some confusion b/c I was thinking of PL at "Post" Liberal rather than "Progressive" Liberal. It is the "post," not the "progressive," that concerns me.
I'm glad to intend to continue working on the Liberal Confession project as well as a Re/Generate one. The greatest value of understanding post-liberal progressivism is dismantling it, in my opinion. By breaking it down, you help to reveal wokeisms' inadequacies. The value of the liberalism that we grew up with is the pragmatic hope that it offers. Wokeism seems to me to be a dystopian fantasy.
Thanks! Yes to the combo of pragmatism and an aspirational democratic vision. That is exactly what I’m hoping to reconnect with. I’m just not sure how.
After all, the liberalism we grew up with evolved into the wokeism we are appalled by. And most people I know either don’t see the difference (it’s all “progress”) or don’t care or something. So somehow the seeds of the latter were in the former; that’s why I feel the goal can’t be simply to dismantle and “go back.”
There is a lot of aggressive anti-wokeism out there and often I find that while I agree with the critique, I am appalled by the hatred and nastiness. That is part of what I find so depressing - even a lot of the people I agree with, I don’t like. There are exceptions, of course!! But I feel like those voices are constantly pushed to the sidelines and don’t break through to change the dominant political stalemate.
Thanks for reading and commenting! I find it very helpful.
I got here from Steven J Lawrence's substack.
As punishment for some major sin in a past life, my older brother had to babysit me when my mom was sick and my dad was overseas (USAF fighter pilot), so he took me to rock concerts since he had free backstage passes from an underground hippy-rock radio station he worked for. I quickly developed deep skepticism about the sanity of most of the people in the late 60s counterculture, the "left", "liberals", etc.
I did however read every Whole Earth Catalog (which had a strong "libertarian-left" flavor) that had ever existed.
I was in the Bahai community for about 30 years, starting as a teenager in the early 1970s. They had/have a very specific, grand plan for "world peace" and a bunch of other superficially "liberal/progressive" stuff that they claim will be possible via spiritual transformation (requiring a Islamic type oath of belief to gain official membership in the Bahai organization and then spiritual salvation).
The religion emerged in Iran in the early to mid 1800s and claims to fulfill the prophecies of the return of Jesus, and it claims that we are in the "end times" (Apocalypse) described in the Bible, Qur'an, etc. Bahaism came to the USA and Western Europe from Iran around 1900s during a peak of interest in "eastern mysticism", including a lot of guru fetishism by wealthy socialities. It then began to evolve into more of a religious bureaucracy. I was told by some older "subversive" Bahais in the 1970s that the organization had been infiltrated by the FBI and/or CIA during the J. Edgar Hoover era, and had become de-radicalized. I was around the periphery of a dissident group of activists and academics starting in the late 1980s that had similar ideas about how the religion's "administrators" had gained power and marginalized "radicals".
If you want a mindlessly enthusiastic religion that seems "liberal" on the surface, with some Sufi-like spiritual texts and themes, but that is actually just a fundamentalist Islamic system of patriarchy, check it out. lol
I transitioned from Bahaism to studying Ken Wilber's integral theory, which was an improvement in many ways (Wilber tries to account for evolution, but kind of screws things up), but Wilber's movement turned out to be more of a neoliberal paradigm about making money from Trust Fund Kidz via alt new age type seminars-workshops-books than I think makes sense.
Back in the 80s and 90s, Wilber was very aspirational, but as is usually the case, a lot of problems with organizational culture developed with Wilber's movement and business spin-offs in the early 2000s.
Wilber's problems are similar to those of Adi Da, who Wilber was a cult-follower of when young.
There seems to be a pattern of spiritual groups and movements being cultish and their "guru" types recycling failed, manipulative group dynamics over and over (Blavatsky).
What I do now (retired), besides studying evolutionary psychology and related fields as a hobby, is to try to find individuals involved in the search for new paradigms and evolutionary possibilities and support them (when I'm not on van camping trips or caring for my increasingly 93 year old mother).
I see the entire left-vs-right narrative itself as an evolutionary dead end, incapable of satisfying emergent coherence needs (spiritual, economic, social, moral, political) at the level required to prevent the big disasters that exist now from getting worse.
If I had to identify one thing that is probably essential, it is development of anti-fragility to disruption. That is where the evolutionary leap to a new version of western civilization is probably going to really show up, beyond all the fragmented, scattered but necessary discussions about human nature and what is going bad.
Jim Rutt and his Game-B group seem like they did the best prototype of how to build an anti-fragile social-change group. Their hardened attack surface of sophisticated content moderators repulsed a couple of major attacks by "woke left" kooks, and one major attack by the alt-right Doolittle "Propertarian" kooks. But is hasn't gone much of anywhere in the last couple of years, even though they had hoped (before COVID) to have developed an ambitious independent tech stack to replace just about everything above the level of the internet backbone: servers, a social media platform, a cell phone, maybe e-money, and so forth.
Breaking through the "infoglut", constant change, crisis, and complexity is a real problem.
Side note: population genetics are one of the biggest limits on how "liberal" or "post-liberal" a given society can be. See Joseph Henrich's (Harvard) WEIRD model and genetic determination of personality traits. And Kurt Fischer's Dynamic Skills theory.
This is one (post left-vs-right) way of potentially making sense of the mess that people might find useful:
(jargon warning)
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
Kegan stage 3: traditional-conservative mythic religious social order
stage 4: modern rationalism, Enlightenment, democracy (objective, Constitutional order)
stage 4.5: postmodern road bumps and deconstructive chaos (relativism, construct awareness, nihilism)
stage 5: holistic-fluid (post left-vs-right) culture
One of Chapman's core goals is to resolve the *pattern-nebulosity conundrum* in human consciousness, philosophy, etc. (similar to Iain McGilchrist's work)
-----
sorry for the length of the above comments.
this is a little dry, but you might find it useful:
re: David Ronfeldt's TIMN model of social change
disruption -> disintegration -> regression to ideological tribalism -> reintegration at a higher level / social form
https://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/02/overview-of-social-evolution-past.html
---excerpts---
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. S
...
Wow, what a fascinating background;you should write a book!
I have never heard of Jim Rutt but will look up him and your other suggestions later.
I have always been skeptical of “evolutionary leaps” when it comes to human consciousness- having spent a good deal of time in the yoga world, I came into contact with some of the Ken Wilbur material and a lot of the culty stuff you describe. It’s a fascinating if problematic terrain for sure. What for lack of a better term I’ll call “spirituality” remains a big interest of mine, one that I hope to explore more with Re/Generate.
Once that line of thinking and experience gets overly mixed into the much more pragmatic and mundane realities of politics, it can be really messy. But OTOH, without an aspirational vision, there can be no movement for political change.
Thanks so much for these very intriguing comments and sharing a bit of your formative background!
Carol, this a poignant piece.
Someone suggested Putnam's book as a good resource. Seems to me that Putnam's thesis is, "We have been here before. We'll get throught it, again." For what it's worth, I think he may be wrong.
It seems to me that as a society, we have lost our unifying creation story, and we're in the process of creating a new one. Actually, many new ones. Woke have found theirs. Native American nationalists have their's, and so on. But Liberalism has been knocked off its chair, and its former adherents are wondering where their creation story went. It's very difficult to live without an underlying creation story and it seems we are now in a disquieting place without purpose. Recognizing the old creation story is not coming back, leaves us with your question, "now what?"
I look forward to reading your journey, musing and insights in Re/Generate.
That's a great way to put it. I myself have found that I can no longer believe in the liberal "creation story" in the way that I used to. For sure, I still feel strongly commited to certain liberal principles (free speech, due process, etc. - which of course puts me in direct opposition to the PLPers). But as far as the mythology that surrounded liberalism in America goes, it does feel like the faith has been shattered and that the pieces simply can't be put back together in a strong, compelling way. Some new mosaic must be created if it's going to appear inspiring again.
I also feel like the new creation stories tend to focus on "who to blame for how bad things are," rather that "what is the positive project that we're all in here together." Of course, the old liberal "we're all in this together" universalism has been rejected from both right and left as a hypocritical smoke screen - and it's easy to see why. It's not like there's no there there.
But "who to blame for how shitty things are" narrative is not inspiring unless you're fired up with anger and resentment. Fueling a positive, inspiring political movement requires a positive vision, which none of these players seem to have - at least beyond a hand-waving "burn it all down and then the good society will arise up out of the ashes" attitude, which I find not only unconvincing, but dangerous.
I feel like I've been going through a similar sequence of thoughts and emotions (partly related the classic stages of mourning), which you crystalized very well for me. I'm sure we're not the only ones so I look forward to progress on both projects. The ways forward are far from clear, but the effort to find them must be undertaken. Thanks!
Thanks for reading and commenting! I'm glad to hear that my process resonated. It feels good to have a new direction and strategy for coping with my chronic political malaise :) I feel energized and having your support truly helps!
Thank you for posting this.
Thanks for reading!
I'm disappointed that you decided not to write the book. Your political journey since 2016 is very similar to mine, and you do such a good job of describing it. I feel like I understand my own experience so much better now that I've read through your posts.
In terms of going forward instead of looking backwards, you may be interested in a couple of academic books that I've read recently, trying to re-think liberalism. 1) Eric Macgilvray "Liberal Freedom: Pluralism, Polarization, and Politics" 2) Rosenblatt "The Lost History of Liberalism" --
Macgilvray argues that post New Deal liberalism became overly individualistic (as seen in Rawls attempt to show that liberalism is the social order that a group of rational self-interested individuals would naturally choose) Per Macgilvray, earlier liberal thinkers sought to balance the individual freedom with more collective goals. Very abstract and academic, but it suggests that we can think about how liberalism got lost w/o having to abandon it.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate that. I’m gratified to hear that my reflections resonated.
I may go back to the book once I’ve found the narrative arc I’m looking for . . . If I do. Your suggestions are great as I would like to dig deeper into thinking about liberal individualism.
The aspirational vision of human flourishing it contained (as opposed to the self-interested rational economic actor model, which it also contains and has been far more culturally dominant, unfortunately) has also been very central to my own identity and outlook. But of late I’ve been questioning whether a new framework is needed - can that vision of liberal individualism work in a society that increasingly lacks the sort of relationship structures that provide a meaningful framework for the development of a healthy individual? “No man is an island,” but increasingly, so many people seem like they are - and they can’t get off of that island of isolation because they lack the skills that come from experience.
I’m rambling but hopefully you get the idea! Thanks again for the great feedback.
I get what you mean. It reminded me of another book that has a more positive vision for the future. Putnam's "The Upswing: How America came together a Century ago and how we can do it again." Putnam thinks that we are in a new Gilded Age and that we can come out of it like we did during the first "Progressive" Era. B/c I was born in 1965, I find it amusing that he considers 1965 the year of peak social capital in the US -- we've been going downhill ever since I was born. A lot of good data in the book, but I don't think that our current PL progressive movement has the unifying vision to lead the upswing that he hopes for.
In my view, a foundational part of PLP is that it rejects the sort of unifiying national vision that PL championed out of hand. While ostensibly seeking to unite the oppressed across intersectional differences, both in theory and practice that never comes close to translating into something unifying, let alone a project of national renewal. So I think that as long as that's the dominant paradigm that controls the country's political culture, Putnam's optimism will defintely not pan out.
It's possible that PLP could be displaced by something on the right, kind of like what the Reagan Revolution ostensibly did in the 1980s in knocking out the malaise-riddled progressivism of the '70s . . . certainly today's right-wing populist types would like to see that happen. (Here, I hasten to note that I was never a Reagan supporter; I'm just pointing to the whole "Morning in America" episode as a possible historical parallel in displacing PLP.)
Since the more authentic right-wing populists don't have control of GOP, however, I don't see that happening on anything but a transparently fake level (if that). And that would only further inflame the culture war, thereby reinforcing the power of PLP among the Blue State faithful. (DeSantis seems to be moving the Republicans in this direction and could possibly win the 2024 election.)
Therefore, in many view, f some sort of national renewal ever comes, it will only be from a new paradigm that cuts across the current Red/Blue divide strongly and successfully, producing a political realignment that's focused on concrete issues that really matter to the vast majority of people, rather than the activist-driven niches that dominate so much now.
Will this happen? It's possible and I hope so! But it's also probably unlikely. Nonethless, that's what interests me as at least a remote possibliity. A girl can dream, right? :) :) :)
It is a good dream. We're stuck in a vicious cycle, but my hope is that only a small percentage of those in the PLP and PL right (PLT - PL Traditionalists?) are ideologically committed to PL. There always have been a few true believers on both sides (I was surrounded by PLP in grad school in the 90s). They have the initiative now not b/c people are excited by their ideology but b/c neoliberalism seems worn out and unconvincing. But I think that liberalism in the broadest sense still seems natural to most Americans, which is why few PLP will endorse authoritarianism outright w/o hiding behind fig leaves (or pointing to the PLs on the other side as the "real" danger to democratic liberalism).
Yes, I have more pessimistic been thinking of PL as the unwitting Trojan Horse for PLP, but you are completely right, it’s only needed as such because if the underlying claims are spelled out, very few actually endorse the PLP vision. Liberal values are still rooted in the culture much more deeply. They need a serious revitalization, though, to grow past the deadweight of a failed neoliberal era.
Thanks again for your comments!
Quick note that I may have introduced some confusion b/c I was thinking of PL at "Post" Liberal rather than "Progressive" Liberal. It is the "post," not the "progressive," that concerns me.
I'm glad to intend to continue working on the Liberal Confession project as well as a Re/Generate one. The greatest value of understanding post-liberal progressivism is dismantling it, in my opinion. By breaking it down, you help to reveal wokeisms' inadequacies. The value of the liberalism that we grew up with is the pragmatic hope that it offers. Wokeism seems to me to be a dystopian fantasy.
Thanks! Yes to the combo of pragmatism and an aspirational democratic vision. That is exactly what I’m hoping to reconnect with. I’m just not sure how.
After all, the liberalism we grew up with evolved into the wokeism we are appalled by. And most people I know either don’t see the difference (it’s all “progress”) or don’t care or something. So somehow the seeds of the latter were in the former; that’s why I feel the goal can’t be simply to dismantle and “go back.”
There is a lot of aggressive anti-wokeism out there and often I find that while I agree with the critique, I am appalled by the hatred and nastiness. That is part of what I find so depressing - even a lot of the people I agree with, I don’t like. There are exceptions, of course!! But I feel like those voices are constantly pushed to the sidelines and don’t break through to change the dominant political stalemate.
Thanks for reading and commenting! I find it very helpful.